I was finishing the main questline again. Now im in skuldafn to go fight alduin and the first puzzle i come to the game wont let me activate the center puzzle. is this an on going problem.

Check the area and corpses as well for the required claw, or do you have it and it is not responding?

this is not a claw type door. this is a 3 pillar puzzle with pictures of a snake, whale, and bird.

Maybe you've just got the puzzle wrong.

Are there any fallen pillars near it? Or have you checked near pillars or in front of them? I was searching for one to , found out its behind the pillar

The left and right puzzles need to match the ones facing them, then the center stone needs to match the stone above the door in which you want to open.

no, i have done this puzzle many times now, when you go to click on the "activate pillar" the pillar is stuck. as in wont move or do nothing

Having done it many times, doesn't mean you've done it right this time. Check for us. Humor us.

yes, the left pillar is set to the picture that is next to it. the right pillar is set to the one next to it. and the center one, when you TRY to click on it, it does NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY nothing!!! it wont work at all

I had this happen in Bleak Falls Barrow with the claw door, where the rings would not activate. I had to not only restart the game, but actually rebooted my computer. That fixed my issue. Don't know if this will help you or not.

How are you people seriously struggling with this concept? He's not saying the door won't open, he's saying that one of the pillars won't rotate when he activates it.

This is a known issue, it has never happened to me personally but its documented on both the UESP Wiki and the other Skyrim wiki... which everyone has started using instead of UESP for some reason. >_>

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_World-Eater
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/The_World-Eater

It's recommended that you reload a save from outside Skuldafn and then re-enter to get the pillars working. Seems to be the fix most people use.

Thank you!! I was wondering if anyone was gonna know what i was talking about. i just loaded an old save back in whiterun to see if that would help. Hopefully it works

Let us know the result.

i will

Yes, restarting from an area outside of skuldafn is the way to fix the problem. Thank you for the help akatauras and pahldus